About the Redact PDF
Blacks out the parts of a PDF that should not be shared - and actually removes them. Drawing a black rectangle over text is not redaction: the words are still in the file and anyone can select them straight back out, which is how redaction failures make the news. This tool redraws every marked page as an image, so what is under the black is gone. Pages you do not mark are left untouched and keep their selectable text.
How to redact a PDF for free
- Choose the PDF and go to the page with the information to remove.
- Drag a box over it - a name, an account number, a signature, a whole paragraph. Add as many boxes on as many pages as you need. It works with a mouse or a finger.
- Press Redact and download. The marked areas become solid black.
No Adobe Acrobat Pro and no account are needed, it works in the browser on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android, and the file is processed on your device - it is never uploaded, which matters when the whole point is to protect what is in it.
Why a black box is not enough
Drawing a black rectangle over text in a normal PDF editor hides it from view, but the text is still in the file: anyone can select it, copy it, or search for it. That mistake has exposed information in published court and government documents. Here, every page you marked is redrawn as an image with the black boxes burned in, so the text under them no longer exists in the file.
What changes on redacted pages
- The rest of the text on a marked page is no longer selectable or searchable, because the whole page becomes an image. Pages you did not mark are copied as they were.
- Marked pages are larger than text pages, so the file grows. Shrink it with Compress PDF if it is too big to email.
- To make the remaining text searchable again, run the redacted file through OCR PDF - the black areas stay black.
Redact, crop, watermark or password?
Redact when information must be gone for good. Crop PDF only hides the edges of a page and can be undone. A watermark marks a document as a draft or confidential, and Protect PDF adds a password so only the people you choose can open it.
